


it's such a pity (a boy so pretty)

by shineyma



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22192972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shineyma/pseuds/shineyma
Summary: It’s not the first time Grant’s pretty face has saved his life.
Relationships: Jemma Simmons/Grant Ward
Comments: 16
Kudos: 104





	it's such a pity (a boy so pretty)

**Author's Note:**

> Ha! Week two of my 52 weeks of fic is a SUCCESS! Thank you SO SO MUCH to everyone who commented on last week's fic--you provided LOTS of motivation to keep going. (And I know I'm sooooooo far behind on comment replies....maybe I'll try to catch up this weekend.)
> 
> Thanks for reading and, as always, please be gentle if you review! <3
> 
> (Also, I feel like I should make clear...it's probably won't be Jemma/Grant every week. It might not even be aos! It just happened to work out this way this time.)

It’s not the first time Grant’s pretty face has saved his life, and it probably won’t be the last.

He’s hoping it _will_ be the least enjoyable, though. In the five minutes since he got dragged before the Kree in charge—because of course, of _course_ he’s dealing with aliens, like he hasn’t already had enough of those for three fucking lifetimes—he’s already been groped, ogled, and creepily stroked dozens of times. And the whole reason he was dragged in here instead of killed on the spot was because the guy would, quote, “be pleased by your appearance.”

To be honest, he’s kinda worried about where this might be going.

“You broke the law,” the Kree muses. Grant’s shoulders twitch as the guy circles him, but he manages to hold back the urge to dodge away. “Entering a restricted level is bad enough, but carrying these _weapons_ …”

He trails off, aiming a displeased frown at the table where all three of Grant’s guns are laid out. (The guards who shook him down missed all his other weapons, but Grant still feels a little naked.)

The temptation to argue his case is there, but Grant ignores it. His main argument would be that he had no way of knowing that the level he was on was restricted—not like there were signs up or anything—and something tells him that letting on he’s not from around here would be a _really_ bad idea.

“The punishment for these infractions is death,” the Kree—what was his name? Something with a C or a K, vaguely Latin-sounding…Cassius?—says ominously, “and yet…”

Once again, the bastard starts _stroking Grant’s cheek_ , and it takes everything he’s got not to react. Each time the creep touches him, the urge to retaliate gets stronger—but he knows he’s gotta resist. He digs his nails into his palms and waits it out, reminding himself of the scary blue chick that greeted him on his arrival. This guy’s ridiculous and showy and Grant had him pegged as a drama queen three seconds in, but _she_ —still here, glowering in the doorway—she’s a threat.

There’s a knife in Grant’s boot, a garrote wire in his pocket, and several hidden blades tucked away in his jacket. He’s armed. He can defend himself if he needs to. And if he _doesn’t_ need to, he should avoid playing his hand too early. The touching and ogling is weird and annoying, but it’s not worth giving up his advantage over.

Still. It’s damn hard not to just stab the guy—Kasius! That was the name, Kasius—in the face.

“Such rare beauty you have,” Kasius finally says. “Your infractions cannot go unpunished, but it would be a crime to destroy your perfection.”

Well. Grant can’t argue with that.

“Sinara,” he says, and the blue chick steps forward and drops something small and metal—actually, it’s worryingly bullet-like—into his extended hand. “Thank you. Now, _Grant_ …”

Grant kind of wishes he’d offered up a fake name. He doesn’t like the way Kasius’ voice wraps around his, the way his tone wavers between intimate and covetous.

Drama queen he may be, but he’s a damn creepy one.

“…you must learn the value of obedience,” Kasius continues, raising his hand again.

Grant’s expecting more face-stroking and once again braces himself not to react. But instead of going for his face, Kasius’ hand cups his ear, and then there’s something cold and metal _slithering in_ , what the _fuck_ —

Pain.

Blinding pain and blinding light and a ringing in his ears that’s closer to _screeching_ —

—and Grant claps his hands over them, trying to muffle it—

—then the ringing fades into silence and the pain dwindles and—

—he can’t hear anything. After that kind of shock, he should hear his heart pounding in his ears, if nothing else, but…no. Nothing. Not even his own panting breath.

His vision clears a little, but not much. It’s clouded at the edges, blurring into indistinct shapes when he tries to look away from Kasius.

What the hell _was_ that thing?

Whatever it was, Kasius was expecting its effects; that much is obvious from his very pleased smile.

“There,” he says, and there’s something different about his voice—or maybe it’s just that Grant can hear it and nothing else. “Isn’t that better?”

“What the hell was that?” Grant asks. Thinks he asks. He can’t hear his own voice.

“A gift,” Kasius says, and strokes his face _again_. Grant is gonna break those fingers, just see if he doesn’t. “Something to aid in accepting your new place.”

His _new place_? Between that and the obedience talk…Grant’s getting a bad feeling about all of this.

+++

The bad feeling turns out to be spot on, because Grant’s new place is _slave_.

Upside: in the process of discovering _that_ , he learns that whatever the hell Kasius did to his vision and hearing isn’t permanent. Another jackass Kree uses a literal remote control to turn the effects on and off while giving Grant a rundown of the exact requirements for being Kasius’ slave.

Do what Kasius tells you to do. Stand where Kasius tells you to stand. Don’t speak unless explicitly invited to do so. Don’t wander out of bounds. Don’t take off the stupid gold paint that’s been smeared all over your face, no matter how ridiculous it probably makes you look. Be grateful that you can’t see clearly enough to witness the effect for yourself in any of the many mirrors scattered around.

Okay, so that last one is Grant’s own extrapolation, but seriously. The gold paint on top of everything else…it’s enough to make a guy homicidal, if he wasn’t already.

And he is very, very homicidal. He’s gonna kill every single one of these blue bastards. Sure, it’ll be a little harder than he anticipated—he was forced to strip out of his own clothes and given some ridiculous new ones, depriving him of his weapons stash—but he’ll manage.

It’s specialist training 101: survive, adapt, kill. He’s got the survival down, thanks to his pretty face. It might take him a few days to adapt, given the sense deprivation, but once he does…

Once he does, he’s gonna pay every single insult he’s received back tenfold. No matter how long it takes.

+++

Step one—arming himself—is easy. By the end of the second hour, he’s already got a blade hidden in his sleeve. He doesn’t even know who he stole it from; it was pure reflex, his training at work. Deaf and half-blind in enemy territory, of course the first thing to do is secure a weapon. It’s so instinctive that he didn’t even notice he was doing it until he was tucking the knife away.

Step two—orienting himself—takes a little longer. Three days, to be precise. It’s annoying as fuck and every second itches at him, but he needs to adjust to his hearing loss and diminished sight. Just because he’s trained to fight blind, deaf, and blind-and-deaf doesn’t mean it’s an ideal state of being, and it takes some compensating for. He’ll do better, _be_ better, if he gives himself time to get used to it.

Step three is getting his bearings, and on that front, he gets a lucky break. Turns out, when Kasius’ slaves aren’t attending on him, he likes to have them wander the halls so all his fellow aliens can admire them.

It’s annoying as fuck, of course—Grant’s played the eye candy plenty in his day, spent a whole four years on SHIELD’s honeypot rotation when he first got out of the Academy, but he’s never been _decoration_ before. These blue freaks treat him like walking furniture, and he doesn’t like it one fucking bit.

It does come in handy, though. He pockets a dozen more weapons over the course of two days.

(On his fifth day as a slave, he actually thinks he sees Simmons—but no, it’s just his (horribly clouded) eyes playing tricks on him. She’s on his mind, is all; his pretty face saved his life, so he’s been thinking about the cut he got at the Hub during the uprising, how it kept getting reopened and she was afraid it would scar.

Good thing it didn’t. Judging by the reaction the slaves who dressed him in this ridiculous blue get-up had to his naked body, Kasius is no fan of scars. If all of Grant’s weren’t hidden beneath his clothes, his jawline might not’ve been enough to protect him.)

Step three complete, all that’s left to do is bide his time.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth days offer no opportunities—or at least, not good ones. There are plenty of _openings_ —

“Very well done, Grant.”

“Such lovely bone structure.”

“Grant, I’m thirsty.”

“Here, my friend, take a look at this latest acquisition of mine—you must admit, he is stunning.”

—but Grant doesn’t let himself be tempted. Kasius remains a creepy fuck, always circling around to stroke people’s faces and coo about how pretty they are, but just because he’s in Grant’s reach with his guard down doesn’t mean it’s the right moment. As easy as it would be to bury his knife in the asshole’s ribs, there are the guards to consider, and they’ll be a lot harder to take down. Especially Sinara: those flying metal balls she flings around look fucking painful, and he’s not in a hurry to free himself only to get dead.

He needs the right moment, and that means waiting until Sinara’s either not around _or_ close enough and unguarded enough that he can cross her off first. And she’s a hell of a lot better at keeping her guard up than Kasius is…to say nothing of the fact that she obviously recognizes Grant’s skills in him and keeps a very close eye on him as a result.

So he’s gotta wait.

Three more days.

Three more days of being petted and stroked, three more days of Kasius’ absent commands, three more days of being ordered to stand around _holding things_. Three more days of menial tasks, of being treated like furniture, like _property_ , and if Grant weren’t determined to keep himself alive out of spite alone—

But no. He’s going to live. He’s going to live and he’s going to kill these blue freaks and then…then he thinks he’ll burn this whole fucking base to the ground. There’ll be nothing left, no sign Kasius ever existed, by the time he’s through. Grant’s determined on that point.

So he soldiers through it, grits his teeth and holds his temper even when Kasius is _right there_ and it would be _so easy_. He waits.

And on the ninth day, he gets his chance.

Sinara’s distracted, focused on one of the other slaves. She’s looming, trying to scare the woman—the one Grant mistook for Simmons at first, as it happens—and her back is wide open.

This is it.

The short sword Grant stole from whoever is in his sleeve. He palms it silently, shifts his feet, and _moves_.

He goes for Sinara’s back. She senses it coming—just like he knew she would—whirls, goes to block…and leaves herself wide open for the real strike, a wide swing that neatly separates her head from her shoulders.

These assholes might be more durable than humans, but they’re not _that_ much more durable. She dies before her head hits the ground.

No time to celebrate, though; it’s a long way from over. The other guards are moving in. He needs to take them out. Fast.

He has no idea how to work Sinara’s metal death spheres, but he doesn’t need to—just grabbing them and throwing them at the nearest guard is enough to make him flinch. It gives Grant time to get in close and wrestle away his…spear? Pike? Grant doesn’t actually know the difference; medieval weaponry’s never been his thing…whatever the long, pointy stick he’s wielding is called.

(Kasius, Grant thinks as he runs past him on the way to said guard, looks like he’s shouting. But Grant’s still deaf, so. Who knows.)

It’s still a hell of a fight—Grant’s new weapon versus the guard’s superior strength and, damnit, the other guard, who jumps into the fight at the last minute—but Grant’s running on adrenaline and the fury of nine days spent being groped by these guys’ boss, so he gets it done.

Best of all, he’s pretty sure—yeah. The second guard’s got one of those very helpful remote controls in his pocket, which means if Grant presses _this_ button…

Sound rushes back in. The pounding of his blood in his ears, his own panting breaths, the first guard gurgling as he chokes on his own blood, Kasius shouting for more guards, and—

“You have _got_ to be kidding me.”

Grant turns on his heel. Was that…? “Simmons?”

His vision’s cleared up, too, and it turns out his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him after all. That slave Sinara was menacing really _is_ Simmons.

“What are you doing here?” she demands, glaring at him with crossed arms.

The gold paint’s not a good look on her, but even with it, she’s a sight for sore eyes. If anyone can figure out how to get him—them—home, it’s Simmons. Of course, _convincing_ her’ll be another story…but whatever. He’ll pull through.

And if she’s had anything like the week and a half he has, his next step will go a long way to softening her up.

“What does it look like?” he asks, and rips the spear/pike/whatever out of the now-dead guard. “I’m killing Kasius.”

“Are you?” the bastard himself asks, drawing himself up like that’s gonna make a glitter-wearing, beauty-obsessed coward look any more intimidating.

(Grant misses Aldridge with a pang. She wears glitter and obsesses over beauty, too, but _she’s_ never any less deadly for it. Being enslaved by Aldridge would be one thing; from this guy, it’s just embarrassing.)

Simmons ignores him. “ _How_? We’re decades in the future, how can I _still_ not get away from you?”

The _future_? Is she serious?

…Actually, no, that explains a lot. _And_ makes him all the happier to have Simmons; he has no idea where to even start on figuring out how to _travel back in time_.

But anyway. Getting home can wait. There’s still their freak of a would-be master to deal with.

“Just lucky, I guess.” He drops her a wink, then spins the spear once and turns to Kasius. “And yeah. You’re dead.”

“We shall see,” the jackass intones—and yeah, Grant’s really, really gonna enjoy this.

He might get some more taunting in first, though.

“What?” he asks. “You think your guards are gonna save you? I notice no one else is running to the rescue.”

“That’s because they hate him,” Simmons volunteers brightly. “His brother visited a few weeks ago to taunt him—apparently his posting here, ruling over the remains of humanity, was a punishment. He’s an embarrassment to his race.” She gives Kasius a familiar disdainful smile. “The rest of his guards are probably halfway back to his father’s army by now.”

Kasius’ jaw shifts. “You disappoint me, Jemma.”

“How often have you heard that from your father?” she asks, feigning concern, and Grant has to laugh.

Kasius takes advantage of his momentary distraction to spring at him—and to Grant’s surprise, it’s a good move. He might be a cowardly freak of an alien, but Kasius obviously has _some_ idea what he’s doing. Not enough to beat Grant, of course, but enough to make it take a minute.

Admittedly, some of that is Grant deliberately dragging it out—partially for his own satisfaction and partially because he catches Simmons picking up one of the other Krees’ discarded spear. She deserves to get some of her own back, too (plus she’s more likely to help him get home if she’s in a good mood), so he ignores several openings to gut Kasius and steers the fight in her direction.

It takes some careful calculation and a few deliberate blows, but Grant’s a professional. Within thirty seconds of working out the angles, he’s got things lined up perfectly.

His spear goes through Kasius’ throat at the exact same moment Simmons’ bursts out of his chest.

All Kasius can manage is a wet, gurgling noise of shock. It pleases the hell out of Grant and puts a downright savage smile on Simmons’ face.

“Silence,” she breathes, just barely loud enough for Grant to hear, and yanks her spear back.

Grant twists his own spear, basking in the way Kasius’ face spasms in wordless pain. The wound isn’t as bad as Sinara’s decapitation; Kasius’ll hang on for a bit.

“I’m really, really going to enjoy this,” Grant tells him, and pulls the spear out.

Kasius collapses.

As he bleeds out, Grant and Simmons stand there in silence, catching their breath and reveling in the sight. And it really is both of them, not just Grant. Even under the stupid gold paint, he can read the vicious satisfaction on her face. She hates the bastard just as much as he does.

After Kasius breathes—or wheezes, really, and hell if it’s not the best thing Grant’s ever heard—his last, though, her gaze lifts slowly to meet his. The hate’s still clear in her eyes, and for a second, he tenses, worried she’s gonna be aiming that spear at him next.

Luckily, her next victim is just a gaudy decorative vase—and accidentally, at that, as she apparently forgot she was holding a spear and threw her hands up in frustration.

Grant’s not complaining; it’s an ugly fucking vase. And Simmons looks good when she’s breaking things.

“How are you _here_?” she demands, ignoring her accidental destruction—except for the part where it reminded her she was holding a spear. She points it at him now. “I swear, if you tell me you’re immortal—”

“Sadly, no,” he says, and gives his own spear a twirl. The adrenaline’s still buzzing in him, itching at him to _move_. “It’s kind of a long story.”

She raises her spear meaningfully. “Make it shorter, then.”

“Well, if you’ve really gotta know…” he trails off.

“ _Yes_.”

“Fitz,” he says, and relishes her flinch.

“What about him?” she asks.

No demands what Grant did to her boyfriend. No threats of what’ll happen if he touched a single hair on his genius head.

Interesting. Interesting and very, very telling.

“Funny story,” he says, filing that away. “I’ve been working on consolidating Hydra—you know, taking out all those pesky other heads that keep intruding on my territory.”

Simmons rolls her eyes.

“There I was,” he says, “clearing out some old, cult-driven branch’s base, only to find my old pal Fitz in a cell.” He shakes his head, feigning sorrow. “Gotta say, it kinda hurt my feelings. I thought we had something special, I really did—and now I find out you’re all just feuding with any old head of Hydra you can find? Hurtful.”

Simmons rolls her eyes again, harder. “You’ll live,” she says…and then mutters, “More’s the pity.”

“Aw, you don’t mean that,” he says, and gestures to the cooling corpse between them. “Look at what a good team we still make!”

A little smile tugs at her lips as she looks down at Kasius—and as she very determinedly steps on his face in the process of moving closer to Grant. She also plants her spear in the bastard’s chest, pushing off it like a walking stick. It’s attractively violent.

(And handy, as she’s now unarmed.)

“Get to the point,” she says. “How did finding Fitz in a cell end up with you here?”

“Right, right. Well, obviously I was curious what he was doing alone in a Hydra cell, and after some gentle persuasion, he told me all about how the rest of you got snatched up by some other spooky government agency.” He searches her face, ready to catch whatever reaction she might have to the rest of it. “He also did some ranting about how he was probably left behind because you—you specifically, not the team in general—needed to be protected from him.”

She looks away and doesn’t comment. That’s even more telling.

He waits her out.

“And that led you here?” she asks eventually.

“That led me to a SHIELD base,” he corrects. “ _This_ SHIELD base, actually. Just…darker and emptier.” He looks around, thoughtful. “Gotta say, I really preferred it without the Kree.”

Simmons makes an ugly noise, presumably in agreement.

“Anyway,” he says, “we found a whole collection of monoliths tucked away in storage. I was just in the middle of radioing a containment team to take care of them when _boom_.” He clicks his tongue. “One of ‘em liquefied and stranded me here.”

“Yes,” she murmurs—more to herself than him, he thinks. “They do that.”

“Yeah.” Grant sets his spear aside (carefully out of her reach) and steps closer. “Lucky for me, I’ve got you to get me home.”

Her eyes snap to his and narrow. “And why would I do _that_?”

“Other than out of the goodness of your heart?” he asks. “How about what my people will do to you, Fitz, and/or the rest of the team if you come out of that monolith without me?”

She obviously doesn’t like that, but she can’t argue it, either. She crosses her arms and looks away, and Grant—Grant can’t help himself anymore.

“Besides,” he says, cupping her face in both hands, “didn’t we just establish what a great team we still make?”

Simmons knocks his hands away with something very like a snarl. He’s not gonna lie, it’s damn hot—and so’s the sight of the blood, _Kasius’_ blood, he leaves smeared on her face.

He’s still buzzing—with adrenaline, with heat, with nine days of pent-up frustration—and he’s willing to bet she is, too. Fuck, she’s apparently been here for weeks, at _least_. She must be dying for some kind of release by now.

So he ignores the snarl and the look she darts at her spear in favor of reeling her in for a kiss.

It’s angry and biting, brimming with all the frustration being a slave and a piece of fucking furniture brought him—and for a whole seventy-three seconds, she returns it in full.

Then she shoves him away with a curse, stumbling back and nearly tripping over Kasius.

“What,” she pants, “the _bloody hell_ do you think you’re doing?”

“Come on,” he says—just as breathless, but better at hiding it. “How long were you his slave? Tell me you haven’t been dying to have someone, _anyone_ , wipe his touch off of you. Tell me you don’t need to forget what his hands felt like.”

Shaking her head, she takes another, more deliberate step back.

“What I need,” she says, “is a shower.” She swipes at her forehead and fails to so much as smudge her makeup. “I need to wash this horrid paint off.”

“And then?” he asks as she turns away.

“And then I’m going to find us a way home,” she says.

‘Us’ could just mean her and the team, but Grant’s gonna choose to think positive and call it a victory. Still, he could always win more.

“That’s it?” he prompts.

“That’s it,” she confirms, already halfway to the door.

Grant sighs. The rejection’s not a surprise, but it is an annoyance. As easy as it’ll be to find someone else—Kasius had plenty of slaves, after all—he really wants _her_. Whether that’s down to their history (some stupid part of him is probably always gonna miss the team at least a little) or just how ridiculously hot she looked shoving a spear through a guy’s chest, he couldn’t really say. All he knows is that he really doesn’t wanna let her walk away.

Which is why he perks up a little when she slows to a stop.

“But I suppose I could use some help washing my back,” she says without turning around.

He smiles. “Could you, now?”

“It wouldn’t mean anything,” she adds, still very determinedly facing away.

She’s watching him in the reflection off the ugly-ass vase near the door, though. He can tell by the way she doesn’t startle when he comes up behind her on silent feet and wraps his arms around her waist.

“Of course not,” he says into her neck. He can feel her breath catch; it makes a little thrum of heat run through him. “Just…letting off some steam. Washing away the Kree. That’s all.”

“That’s all,” she echoes, just a bit faintly.

They’re nowhere near the showers. That doesn’t stop him from pinning her against the nearest wall—and she doesn’t seem to mind.


End file.
